The End of the Nation State

(by Kenichi Ohmae)

Class: Sociology of Globalization

Speaker: Clemens Sett
„New World Order“ & Old World

• end of Cold War: alliances and oppositions

among industrialized nations diminished

• along this development: modern nation state

began to disappear

• nation-to-nation linkages lost importance both in

economics and in politics
 What is at stake?
• Which party and policies dominate in the nation
states’ government?

• The number of new independent units into which

the old center decomposes?

• The cultural lines along which it would fragment?

• > the author says NO

 What is at stake?
• there are fundamental changes in economic
activities around the world

• these activities have developed new channels

that have nothing in common with the traditional
political maps

• > nation states are no longer meaningful units of

participation in today’s global economy
 Nation states > small actors?
• 1. nation states have too little freedom to make
contributions
– they may use traditional forms of economic
sovereignty to boost the overall economic wellbeing
– BUT: the sovereignty over peoples and regions
makes the desired economic success impossible
– Why? Because the global economy punishes
countries which exert sovereignty by diverting
investment and information elsewhere
– they are rather inefficient instruments of wealth
distribution
– they are vulnerable through economic choices made
elsewhere
 Nation states > small actors?
• 2. nation states are increasingly a nostalgic
fiction
– each state has regions with very different needs

• 3. it is difficult to attach a national label to global

companies
– Is an American car really a US product when a large
percentage of components comes from abroad?

• 4. if companies wear a national label it is not for

economic well-being
– rather: ‘mini-nationalism’ (in which emotion-symbols
are important)
 Today’s borderless economy
• better access to low-cost, high-quality products
when they are not produced “at home”

• What can stop the forces coming into action

since the end of the Cold War?
– cultural, religious, ethnic, tribal affiliations
– older fault lines which may reappear
– groupings based on civilisations not nations > these
groupings are the only ones that seem to matter
 Civilisations & Cultures
• Could they be meaningful units of economic
activity?
• > e.g. ASEAN countries – a single, culturally
defined economic area?
– they affect local patterns of work, trade & industry
– internal differences among religious traditions are
large
– BUT: these differences do not provoke the same
conflicts that arise elsewhere
– Why? > Conversation is possible; villages with
different religions are economically linked
Civilisations & Historical Context
• all people are linked to the same sources of
global information
– different lifestyles, consumer tastes, philosophies
– even if: immediacy & completeness may vary and
governments try impose restrictions

• > linkage to global flows of information is THE

distinguishing fact from earlier periods in history
 Process of convergence
• fast & deep process; reaches more fundamental
dimensions
– worldview; mind-set; thought process
– instantaneous, ‘nanosecond’ migration of ideas and
innovations

• information flows underlying economic activity

are shared by all citizens and consumers >
information as a ‘harmonizing entity’ for different
developments after the end of the Cold War
 Information-driven participation in
the global economy
• can contain the process of disintegration
unleashed by the reappearance of older fault
lines

• Why?
– because well-informed citizens will not wait for
improvements in lifestyle (e.g. by nation states)
– they want to build their own future
– they want their own access to the global economy
Nation States and Global Economy
• In history nation states managed economic
affairs

• Why?
– control of military strength
– control of natural resources and colonies
– control of political independence

• > all of these aspects are of diminishing

importance in a global economy
Nation States and Global Economy
• Instead:
– demands for a civil minimum, the support of special
interests & the protection of disadvantaged groups
rise
– the ‘speed of escalation’ varies (under certain
circumstances & under certain regimes)
• What can stop this process?
– wars
– natural disasters (e.g. plagues, earthquakes, …)
– > no adequate ‘instruments’
 Theory of the author
• There is only one policy instrument governments
have
– give operational autonomy to the wealth generating
region states
– catalyze the efforts of these region states to seek for
global solutions
– use their ability to put global logic first and enable the
entry into the global economy

• > away from the nations and back toward the

regions
The End of the Nation State
(by Kenichi Ohmae)

Class: Sociology of Globalization

Speaker: Clemens Sett
 Questions
• 1. Do you agree with the author to encourage
economic activity going ‘back’ toward the
regions?

• 2. How would you define ‘region’? Are there

differences in the definition when looking at
different continents?